Better Run, Outrun My Gun
by Blackbirdox
Summary: Fed up with bullying and harassment over their sexuality, Neil Perry and Todd Anderson take revenge on their fellow Welton students in the only way they know how. AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Dead Poets Society.

**Author's Note: **Yikes, I haven't written anything for DPS in forever. All I can really say is that you all should know by now how much I love writing angsty fic, and things are about to get _angsty_.

**Warnings:** Character death, murder/suicide, violence, language, and allusions to mental illness

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><p>Neil Perry met Todd Anderson at the start of their junior year in August of 1999.<p>

The Anderson family was new to the city of Welton that year, having just relocated across state from Hartford. Todd, who had always been a shy and somewhat awkward kid, hadn't taken the move very well and by the time that fall rolled around, he'd retreated so far into himself that it was nearly impossible to get him to make eye contact or speak more than a few words at a time—until he'd met Neil.

They'd occupied two seats in the very back of the room in their homeroom class, sitting side by side for nearly a month before either one of them spoke to the other. On September 21, Neil came into class with a worn out and dog eared copy of _Leaves of Grass_ under his arm and just before the end of the period, Todd had finally worked up the courage to lean over and inform him that that was his favorite book.

Gerad Pitts, who had been in school with Neil since kindergarten and sat opposite of him in homeroom, remembered thinking that he had never once seen Neil Perry smile as widely as he did that day.

Neil Perry started dating Todd Anderson around the middle of October and by the end of the month, he had fallen in love with him.

They were a happy couple—quiet and low key with a passion for reciting poetry to one another over the telephone at three in the morning when they were supposed to be sleeping. Neil was a little more outgoing, always talking about something and laughing at his own jokes. Todd stayed quiet most of the time but when Neil was around, he smiled more and was often more willing to engage in conversation. They almost always kept to themselves, sitting side by side at an otherwise vacant lunch table or lounging around the library together, and most people let them go about their business.

Most, but not everyone.

On more than one occasion, both Neil and Todd had arrived at school to find derogatory slurs spray painted onto the doors of their lockers. They'd been shoved in the hallways and had doors slammed in their faces. They'd been denied partnership in group projects several times and they were always on the receiving end from a particularly nasty sneer from one person or another.

Most of the time, people left them alone. Most of the time, Neil and Todd didn't mind it when they didn't.

Now, prior to March of 2000, Welton Connecticut was the sort of place where nothing much ever happened. It was home to a few thousand people, mostly rich families with roots as old as the town itself, and it had a reputation for being a tranquil and peaceful community—a place where fresh faced couples could settle down, get married, and raise children who would eventually grow up to do the same. Nothing ever happened there, and everyone thought that nothing ever would.

But in March of 2000, something inside Neil Perry and Todd Anderson had snapped. (Quite literally, in Todd's case, as he had been shoved into a bathroom door with enough force to break his collarbone back at the end of February.)

In March of 2000, ten students were shot and killed at Welton Public High School, and another five were injured.

In March of 2000, Neil Perry and Todd Anderson stood in the hallway with blood on their hands, and Neil put a bullet in each of their heads.

_Are you sure about this?_ Todd had asked just a few days before as he lay in bed beside Neil, just the tips of their fingers touching beneath the blankets.

Neil had turned to him and smiled; had kissed away the worry lines creased into his forehead.

_Trust me. They'll get what they deserve. _


	2. Chapter 2

The first shots that ring out on the morning of the fourteenth are fired from Neil's gun, a .38 special that his mother had always kept in her nightstand for protection.

It's 9:15.

The bullets strike a boy named Charlie twice, once in his shoulder and once in his chest, just below his heart. Neil had known Charlie since they were just babies and they had been the best of friends for years, from their first day of kindergarten to a day in the middle of their freshman year. That had been the year that Charlie had finally grown into himself, transforming from the gawky, geeky boy with knobby knees, braces, and a bowl haircut into a handsome, funny young man who managed to catch the eye of every girl they went to school with.

With the girls came new friends and with new friends came new hobbies and interests that Neil could have cared less about. Charlie took up smoking, started having sex, and started drinking. Neil stayed home, read, and continued to build his model airplanes while Charlie matured and grew into a perfect stranger.

At first, it didn't bother Neil. People changed and friendships ended and that was just a part of life. Charlie hadn't been the first friend that Neil had lost, and he knew that he wouldn't be the last, so he wished him well and moved on.

But at the start of their sophomore year, Charlie returned to school looking wan and ragged, strung out from whatever substance he'd hopped himself up on the night before. He was no longer the person that Neil had grown up with, and Charlie made sure to remind him of that each chance he got.

Neil would always plead with him, back pressed up against a set of lockers with Charlie's fingers wrapped around his throat. "Charlie," he would say. "Charlie, please. I was your best friend."

Charlie would laugh along with his friends at that, the ones who were seemingly always on hand to knock Neil's books out of his hand or trip him in the hallway or shout out the word faggot when he walked by. "Well not anymore. Thank God I wised up, huh?" he would respond with that smirk of his before he'd deliver a punch to Neil's gut just because he could.

And now, just because he can, Neil shoots Charlie for a third time, aiming his shot for the center of his abdomen. "Remind you of anything?" he says as he stands above Charlie, feet on either side of him.

Charlie utters a wheezing gasp and a stream of blood seeps out from the corner of his mouth. "N-Neil," he breathes, unfocused eyes searching to make contact with Neil's own. "Sorry. So sorry."

Neil cocks his gun again and points it at the center of Charlie's forehead. "You don't get to be," he says, and then he pulls the trigger.

Around them, the hallway has lapsed into such silence that Charlie Dalton's last breath seems to echo in the quiet, though it only lasts for a moment. Then the chaos starts.

Amber Johansson, the girl Charlie had been seeing on and off for a few months, lets out an excruciating scream as she falls forward onto her knees besides his body. Her head rests on his chest while she wails, sobbing with such force that her entire frame shakes with the effort of it. There is blood coating her hands and bits of Charlie's brain matter in her hair.

Amber's scream soon sets off a sort of domino effect of girls shrieking and crying, shouting for their boyfriends or their friends or the nearest teacher. Students take off running, ducking into vacant classrooms and bathrooms and tucking themselves into corners, huddled all together like herds of frightened animals.

Beside Neil, Todd is smiling, tightly clutching the butt his own pistol. "One down," he murmurs to Neil, finally withdrawing his gun from the pocket of his coat. He cocks it and takes a brief glance around before he shrugs his shoulders and fires a bullet into the back of Amber Johansson's skull. Might as well, he figures.

"And I guess that makes two," Neil responds, face splitting into a smile to match Todd's. Relief and adrenaline flow throughout him, drowning out the sounds of screaming and sobbing and the blood that's beginning to pool around his feet.

"Who's next?" Todd asks as he steps away from the bodies of Charlie and Amber. When Mr. Hager, a math teacher from the nearest classroom, steps out into the hallway with a phone in his hand, Todd raises his gun and points it at him as if to warn him not to come any further. "Neil?"

With his free hand, Neil reaches up and scratches the back of his neck. "People will be holing up soon," he says. "Anyone who heard the shots will be locking their doors. Trying to warn the people in the other buildings." He shoves his gun back into his pocket and finally moves away from the lifeless forms in front of him, giving Charlie a swift kick for good measure. "What do you think? Want to pay Jeffery a little visit?"

Todd's face lights up at the prospect. "Lead the way."

It's 9:27.

**A/N: I'm trying to keep this as realistic as possible but if you think any details are too far fetched or that I'm not handling the subject matter appropriately, please don't hesitate to let me know. The last thing that I want is for such a sensitive topic to be portrayed incorrectly. **


End file.
